NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Anorexic women with a history
of childhood anxiety may have particularly severe symptoms of
the eating disorder, a study suggests.

It's known that anxiety disorders, like social phobia and
obsessive compulsive disorder, are far more common among people
with anorexia than in the general population. Often, these
anxiety disorders appear before the eating disorder does.

In the new study, published in the International Journal of
Eating Disorders, researchers looked at whether a history of
childhood "overanxious disorder" was related to the severity of
women's anorexia.

Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik, of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, and colleagues found that of 637 women with
anorexia, 39 percent reported symptoms of childhood overanxious
disorder. In nearly all cases, those symptoms arose before the
onset of their anorexia.

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In general, the researchers found, women with a history of
childhood anxiety exhibited "more extreme personality traits"
and attitudes -- like perfectionism and obsessive tendencies
related to food -- than women without a history of early
anxiety disorders.

They were also more likely to purge, by vomiting or abusing
laxatives, in addition to strictly limiting their food intake.

According to Bulik's team, childhood anxiety disorders "may
represent one entree" into anorexia. This, they say,
underscores the importance of recognizing and treating these
conditions early on.